Fully back into the swing of work [after a brief interlude in Iceland] and the joys of London living, my life seems to be a juggling act where occasionally I drop the ball. Too much to do and too fast a pace, is my cry like all fellow Londoners.
During ’sardine can’ train trips, [a woman got on today and pushed my current read into my face squashing my nose delicately between the pages like a bug], drunken evenings [oh Xmas, the season of going out looking great and coming home looking like you fell face first on a grate is upon us] and work ['You want it by End of Play?! TODAY?!] - I have managed to acrobatically get through this weeks book [mostly whilst some men worked on the train track opposite my flat with a grinding saw at 2am in the morning].
After all, I could not resist a book written by a woman who gave up sex for a year…
Hephzibah Anderson did this very thing – ‘No more sex in the city’ reads the slogan. I greeted this with much the same way all the people I told on my drinking travels did ‘Seriously? Not that difficult. What does she talk about – doing nothing?’.
Well actually I was pleasantly surprised, how does she manage to keep her lust at bay? Everyone know when you don’t want something to happen it always does!
This isn’t a book about nothing, she still dates, she moves to New York, she redefines her wardrobe, she still meets men but essentially she has decided that there has been too much sex without love and now she is looking for love without sex. A bold task in The Big Smoke I call home, could you do it? Be honest with yourself?
Daily I exchange ’single girl on a mission to find Mr Right’ conversations with my friends, but has Hephzibah Anderson just cashed in on that Bridget Jones element in each of us? Probably.
Chastened is a book worth reading, it made me think, just like her, of all those relationships of my past. She feels they have profoundly defined her and her actions. This ultimately is not a book about sex but a book about what makes us react in certain ways to sex. The chapters are mini essays on her life and it feels, as you read along, that you are talking to your own friends. It isn’t too deep that you need to furrow your eyebrows, but it does touch on topics troubling all women and what defines them as women. It hits a chord and I like a book that does that.
The ending isn’t as profound as I would have liked but all the same this book will make you think, make you want to find out ‘what happens next?!’ and is a great page turner. Pour yourself a glass of wine if you have any time to sit down – and enjoy.
Weekly Roundup
Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater
Cyrano: The Life and Legend of Cyrano de Bergerac by Ishbel Addyman
